


Stranded

by Zatyrical



Series: Stranded Together [1]
Category: Video Blogging RPF, jacksepticeye - Fandom, markiplier - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, Fluff, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating, Septiplier - Freeform, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow To Update, Stranded, Subnautica AU, kind of?, tags will be updated as it goes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:26:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21602941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zatyrical/pseuds/Zatyrical
Summary: Seán and Mark decided that a one month trip to space was one of the best deals that they could ever get. Space was the next big frontier to explore and of course people needed to start advertising it, so why not sending known internet people out there? After all, it is supposed to be safe, right?
Relationships: Mark Fischbach/Sean McLoughlin, Markiplier/Jacksepticeye
Series: Stranded Together [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1793152
Comments: 32
Kudos: 52





	1. Prologue

The last thing that Seán had ever wanted was to fall to his death from a ship in flames. Sadly he was in that exact position right now. He was going to die, and it was going to be because his last brain cell had decided to ignore all of the red lights that the proposition he had accepted at the beginning of the year had, and changed all of his thoughts to: “Free Space Travel!”

Sure, it hadn’t been completely, free, the trip to space was _free_ , Seán had to pay for everything else. The trip to America, the hotel, the training, the suit. It had been a hell of a lot of money, but hey! It would be a unique experience and _It. Was. Space._

He was definitely not the first one to go, during the past couple of years there had been some trials with actual astronauts and one or two trips that people with endless amounts of money paid for. But other than that, they were the first ones being sponsored. He and other influencers and people with money, of course.

He was having a panic attack. Red lights turning on and off around the massive ship, screaming coming from people terrified, the sound of people running around him and pushing each other to get to safety. All of it surrounding him. 

He was going to die just because he had gotten greedy and had wanted to travel to space.

“Jesus Fucking Christ! Seán fucking move!”

Mark. He had gotten to the trip too.

Mark had always been a slut for space, everyone knew that, and when this one big video game company invited him to a trip, he hadn’t thought about it twice. As a dozen of other influencers had done when asked if they would wanted to join.

Mark had been so excited in the training, Jack remembered. He had been too! But simulators of space ships? Anti gravity training? Mark looked as if he was a child experiencing Christmas for the first time. 

Jack also vaguely remembered that, while it lasted, he had feel as if he was once again in 2014. Just the two of them, being assholes, not thinking about the consequences. Acting as children all over again. 

Seán had remembered why he had been so obsessed with Mark back when he had started to make videos.

They used to spend time like this whenever Seán used to go to PAX, or when they did the Revelmode thing. He remembered all of the stupid jokes that they did. All the _appealing the audience_ schtick that they were so confident were doing right.

He remembered what it had been being Jack all the time, and he remembered why he had stopped.

Not that he was not JackSepticEye anymore. But he had grown past that, he had grown into a bigger person. Even fans mostly referred to him as Seán now, because he was autenthical now. Because now “Jack” was a part of him and not a persona that he had to put in front of the cameras.

And now everything was ending. 

People say that everything passes fast. That everything is hectic and frantic.

But when you are panicking, it feels eternal.

“I fucking need you to move, you hear me you Irish Bastard?!” Mark grabbed him by one arm turning around, trying to see if there was any women around them (kids had been explicitly not invited in case something happened. Something like the problem that they were going through on this exact moment). Seán trusted Mark, even if he was not one of his _closest_ friends, they had gotten through a lot together.

There was a time when Seán didn’t like flying. Too many possibilities of him falling to the ground because of a little mistake. He had needed to learn to grew past that fear when youtube had evolved into what it was now for him, his full time job. Too many flies to PAX, and VIDCON, and conventions, and even only just to visit his friends.

So when the time came and he got into the spaceship, and the crew gave them the tour, telling them every single point of exit through pods, Seán hadn’t even thought about an accident. He was confident now, he felt safe.

“Secure the seat belt and bars around you!” Mark yelled at him and Seán looked at the both of them sitting in the now closed pod, ready to be ejected.

Seán didn’t remember how he had even entered the pod but still did as told. He got barely in time to secure the bars around him when he felt how the main ship ejected the small capsule.

He was going to die. 

He looked up, through one of the entrances of the pod, giving him a view of the spaceship covered in fire. He also saw how, not more than a second later, one of the back motors from the ship exploded, more fire starting to come out of it.

_Death._

“Cover your head!” 

It was the last thing that Seán heard before everything went pitch black.


	2. Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't wait a long time so I decided to just put the first chapter up now. I have some chapters advanced now, but i will try to keep up my pace and try to not stay behind on the writing :P  
> Either way, enjoy!

Seán’s ears were ringing. His head spinning. And when he opened his eyes he saw how the pod was filled with smoke and fire.

He had to get out.

He started to move the bars around himself with as much force as he possibly could. Pushing with all of his strength to move everything around him off. After a few tries he made it, he was free.

Seán stood up clumsily, his head hurt and his legs were barely responding, but he could move. Adrenaline, maybe, but he had to take care of one problem at a time. 

Seán turned to see around him and the panic that he had had on the ship came back to him as a rush.

_ He had to get out. _

He turn around again and his eyes fell on Mark still unconscious on his seat. Head hanging down to the front.

_ Unconscious _ . Because he could not be dead. Seán refused to think that Mark could be dead.

As fast as he could, he moved Mark’s own bars and seatbelt out of the way and took them both of them to the top of the pod. Mark was not as heavy as he thought he would be, but that didn’t mean that Seán had it easy, he still had taken hits around all of his body and moving hurt. But Mark had taken them both out of the ship, he had to save Mark too.

When he finally made it to the roof of the capsule, he rushed to check Mark.  _ Please don’t be dead _ being the only coherent thought that he could form in his head. It took him a few tries, but Seán finally found his pulse. 

He tried to think another way of helping his friend, but when he saw around the weirdest feeling filled him. The adrenaline was suddenly completely gone and his legs bended below him.

They were surrounded by ocean. Everything was ocean. And, probably a kilometer away, the ship, wrecked and on fire. Not a sound to be heard other than the fire (way louder than what Seán had ever imagined) consuming whatever was left inside.

He wanted to cry. Maybe it was a dream. Maybe he would wake up in his bed in a couple of minutes, and everything would be perfectly fine and normal, and if the invitation was still there he was going to be able to give a rotound  _ No _ .

Some coughing from behind him called his attention, and he turned back to see Mark sitting on his place.

_ Not dead.  _

Now Seán was sure that he was crying.

Mark turned to see him, and hundreds of emotions crossed his face. 

Then Mark saw the ship. And then the ocean.

And the hundred emotions turned into terror.

They sat in silence. Seán was crying quietly, and he was sure that Mark was crying too. 

Alone.

Seán remembered the instructions that everyone gave people when stranded. Look for shelter, look for food, find fire. But how did you do those things if you were in the middle of the ocean, as far as the planet earth as you could?.

He didn’t even remembered what had happened. Had they crashed with something? Had something malfunctioned?

“This is all of my worst nightmares combined” Mark said, sounding weak, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Do you think anyone else-?” He couldn’t find himself to finish the question. It would mean that he was actually considering all of what was happening was real. He was also getting the door open for an answer that he was not ready to listen.

But Mark still answered “Don’t know”

The sun was moving way faster than what it normally did on earth. It was not nighttime just yet, but it would soon be.

And their pod was on fire.

“Fuck!” Seán stood up and went downstairs, inside the capsule, it was their only safe space that they had, he couldn’t let it burn to ashes.

Mark seemed to understand what was happening and followed Seán close behind.

“Damnit”

And dammit was an understatement. They had to put the fire out as fast as possible.

“The fire extinguisher” Mark said signaling to the side of the seat that Jack had taken and saw it tangling there.

“Shit! Hot!” The metal container was burning, and Seán couldn’t stop himself and let it fall.

“Of course is hot, you dumbass” Mark took the flannel that he was wearing off and used it to grab safely the extinguisher.

Once Mark had it steady on his hands, Seán took the lock off, and with that they put out the fire that was in the capsule.

The monitor inside was useless, displaying a message that only repeated ERROR over and over. There was a fabricator, and some storage space right below the monitor. He and Mark probably thought the same thing and went directly to see what was still useful and could be any kind of help.

Some nutritional bars and bottles of water were laying down inside the seat that Seán had checked and took everything out. He couldn’t have been more glad to the pod for being that good at fire resistance.

“This is a fucking miracle” Mark said, taking out of the first box a repair tool. 

They had taught them how to use those in training. It hadn’t been as cool as it sounded.

It was like a soldering iron but for electrical stuff. It helped them repair big machines easier and faster. There was not much to it (Seán hadn’t really payed attention to that part, it had been minutes before using it inside the  _ zero gravity _ chamber and he had his priorities elsewhere), but he knew the basis. Mark was right, it was a fucking miracle.

“Think you can fix the monitor in the pod?”

Mark turned to see him and then back to the pistol. “Only one way to found out”

Mark turned it on, apparently having put more attention to the explanation than what he had done. The repair tool started to hum quietly and Mark pointed it to the big monitor. 

Seán didn’t know how but it was working. They had seen the repair tool in action fixing a small phone back in training, but seeing Mark pointing it to the monitor and this, almost magically, going back to almost new. Seán was shocked.

“Holy fuck” He couldn’t stop himself from exclaiming when Mark got the tool down and they were both facing the now repaired monitor.

“How much luck do you think we need to have for all of this to actually function?” Mark asked already trying to click all of the emotes that appeared in front of him.

“After everything that happened? I don’t know, tit for tat?” Seán answered ironically, trying to not think about the ship and all of the people that had been boarding it with them.

Mark was trying to keep a cool attitude towards whatever was happening. He had always been a person to think about himself first, others later. Not always, and not towards everyone, of course, Seán knew that. Mark had a close number of friends that he was always going to put first other than anything. All of the charities that he did were also an exception, they both had always shared that thought, if they had more than enough to give back, they would do it. They owed a lot of people their livelihoods.

So Mark was probably just blocking everything away. At least until they both were safe of whatever they needed to be safe.

Which was another problem…

“Where the fuck are we?” Seán asked, looking at the monitor that was still trying to be deciphered by Mark.

“I don’t know” Mark touched an emote on the monitor giving them the option to scan. Mark touched it.

“What will that do?” 

“I don’t know”

“Then why did you clicked it?!” Seán almost yelled. They were  _ stranded _ , they couldn’t give themselves the benefit of just going around messing things up.

“I don’t know, Jack! What else did you want me to do?!” Mark matched his tone, sounding desperate.

They locked eyes for a second and Seán understood that they needed to keep their heads clean. Screaming at each other was not going to help in anything.

It hadn’t helped before and in their situation was probably going to be even worse.

“Seán”

Mark blinked a couple of times, taken back by Seán saying his own name.

“You called me Jack” Seán said, shrugging, but not getting his eyes away from Mark’s “We are stranded in god knows where. You calling me Jack sounds… fake”

Mark seemed to catch on and he physically relaxed “Sorry, still can’t rub the habit off”

He was also the one to look for a way out first “‘S’okay”

Seán turned to the monitor that was now displaying a charging symbol and a big 6%. 

“I guess it will take a while” Mark said sighing and sitting on the floor, looking down to the second entrance to the capsule that went out directly to the ocean “Why? Why of all places, it had to be the ocean?”

Seán couldn’t help but to give a small smile and sat down too. Thinking about the past was way better than to think about everything else. “Still have that phobia?”

“You can’t tell me that you are not scared shitless” Mark said as an answer.

“Oh definitely” Mark raised an eyebrow, giving Seán a green light to keep talking “but you are the one that can barely stand bodies of water in other than a pool and the occasional river”

“There are horrible creatures down in OUR OCEAN, and suddenly we are in a complete different planet, and in  _ ITS OCEAN! _ ” Mark sounded genuinely terrified but the tone on his voice remembered him of the old let’s-just-play-games-together times. It made him feel almost in his comfort zone.

“We don’t even know if there is life here” Seán retorted, in part because they actually didn’t know, and other part because he just wanted to keep talking with Mark.

“Oh, come on!” Seán smiled at the familiarity of Mark’s voice and a part of him was surprised at how easy was to block traumatizing events if you avoided it completely “A planet with a breathable atmosphere? Those seaweeds down there? There  _ is _ something out there”

“Maybe it’s just bacteria”

“Oh, fuck bacteria”

Seán laughed a little and noticed how Mark chuckled too.

His laugh had changed since they used to hang out. Seán always blamed himself for it, he didn’t think he would get to say it out loud one day, but he knew it and that was enough. He used to make fun of his laugh all the time, copying him on his own videos and in their little schitcks. Seán remembered that one PAX panel when the talk came out and he made Mark’s laugh impression. Mark had laughed, identically at what he had sound and they all joked about it.

Not even a month after they had stopped recording videos together Mark stopped laughing that way. His laugh had more freedom now, full peals of laughter coming out of him instead of the low half-chuckle, half-grumble that he made. Seán liked it more, just as himself, it was more genuine, he just hoped he hadn’t been the one that made him had to change it.

He looked down at the underwater entrance on the capsule “We are going to need to get out at one point” Mark was watching him again and Seán wished he could read minds, he didn’t know how to feel at all and Mark’s full gaze on him wasn’t helping “We don’t even know if the pod can contact anyone, yet”

Mark turned to see the monitor and Seán looked too. 7% and counting. It was going to be a slow process and maybe it was for nothing.

“The monitor’s our only chance”

And Mark was right. They didn’t have anything else to go with. The ship was a wreck, they didn’t know where anyone else could be, they were stranded in the middle of nowhere. Odds weren’t on their favor, not even with all the luck they had had with the repair tool and the pod.

“It doesn’t look like the ocean’s floor is far away” Seán forced the conversation to keep going. Alone with his thoughts was a bad idea, he didn’t think he could take it and Mark was the closest to anything familiar that he had “Besides, I don’t think the nutritional bars will last us more than a week”

“Either you are way too eager to explore, or you are just doing this to torture me” Mark leaned back and put his face on his hands.

Seán took a deep breath and couldn’t help but feel bad. Maybe he was like Mark too, maybe he had been pushing everything for his own good instead of thinking about his friend.

Mark looked small. He was sure that if a third person was looking at both of them, Seán would look small too. But something inside him told him that he should be there for Mark, because it hadn’t been just him that had survived a horrible experience just now.

Seán moved over and sat at Mark’s side. They were not touching, he had wanted to give Mark some space to panic alone, if Mark wanted it then he would offer comfort, but other than that, he was not going to impose on Mark’s thoughts. Seán was just going to sit and wait.

It was not the best for him. The light that came from outside the capsule faded away completely and Seán noticed nighttime surround the slightly light pod. Days were faster on this planet than on earth. It was bizarre. He wondered how could he do a clock that worked with this planet’s time. Maybe he could try and count the seconds that a day had, and then work himself to hours with math.

He could also look at the sun in this planet. They were supposed to still be in the solar system, getting out of it would have taken them decades, and they hadn’t been more than a week on the ship. The trip was meant to be a month, they had mastered a faster and… “safer” way to travel through space.

Seán felt even worse. He hadn’t even asked too many questions, he had just accepted that other people had tried space travel before and it had worked. He had just gone into a ‘let’s try something new’ mentality and accepted terms and conditions without reading. Seán knew now that that had been his first mistake. The trainers told them about the speed that some scientists had managed to get on their ships, not quite yearlights, but something way closer than what anyone else had managed to accomplish. 

They told them that it was still something quite private. Most of the trips that they had done had been personalized travels that lasted no more than 2 weeks. Made for people with money that wanted to pay to give the earth one or two laps and that was it.

But now they wanted to expand it, they wanted to let people know that, with time (closer than what people thought), everyone could have their own little space trip. And they decided to approach this by inviting influencers and celebrities to a 1 month trip to promote them.

Seán had thought that people would end up inviting Felix. Being a massive influencer and whatnot, with more than a hundred million subscribers and being the first single channel on youtube to get to that milestone. But they hadn’t invited him, and, even if at the beginning Seán had been a little disappointed, he couldn’t have been happier now. 

He also had been disappointed than most of his friends hadn’t been invited and that he was going to be alone. With Mark, sure, but alone after all, they hadn’t really talked in years and it was going to be uncomfortable with how they had ended things before.

Now it was a different story. If someone else that Seán knew had been invited and accepted to go into the ship, he would probably be in a full panic attack at the moment.

He turned to see the monitor, now showing a good 21%. It wasn’t going faster, he knew that, but at least it was still going up. A little shimmer of hope that Seán could always get a grasp on.

He also wondered how long would it take for him to finally not have any other thought to go through and how would it down to him that everyone else was most probably dead. 

He was going to miss making videos on youtube. It was stressful, tiring, and a really demandant job, but it was what he  _ loved  _ doing. 

Seán’s eyes went back to Mark. He knew that Mark loved doing videos too, and he found himself wanting to not be the only one that was feeling how everything was spiralling out of control.

“We don’t even have suits to get in the ocean” It had been a low-volumed sentence by Mark, but speaked volumes, he was actually considering going out.

“You don’t have to” Seán found himself saying “I could go and explore outside and we could use this capsule as a shelter. You wouldn’t need to go out”

“Aw, would you do that for me?” Mark’s voice was flat, clearly trying to joke the situation out, but he couldn’t find it in himself to do it. Maybe he shouldn’t have been left with his thoughts for a long time either.

“That’s what friends do” The word ‘friend’ sounded foreign on his mouth. He still considered Mark a friend, sure, but one of those that you talked with once every blue moon. Too many things had happened between them and then they just fell apart.

Mark seemed to consider the word too.

“I don’t know if you have seen any survival movies” Mark ended up saying “People split up and then they die, it’s Survival 101”

Seán leaned back on the walls of the capsule and looked up. Still nighttime. From the corner of his eyes he saw how Mark also leaned back.

“I thought Survival 101 was things like, fire, shelter, food, and water”

“Sure, but we already checked those out. I don’t know if you noticed but you burned your hand”

Seán wasn’t even looking at Mark but he knew that he was semi-smiling. He wondered if mood swings were a symptom of entering a state of shock or trauma.

“So what, I’m not allowed to go explore for help?”

“Let’s just wait for this thing to finish scanning” Mark said, lazily pointing to the monitor “Then we’ll see what to do next”

He wasn’t too fond of the idea. Maybe some people were still out there, injured or in danger, but they were also not going to be of any help if they just went out without any preparation. And Mark was right, god knew what was out there waiting for them.

“Okay then. Rule #1: Do not split up. Check”

“Yeah, that sounds good”

Mark seemed a little bit more relaxed and Seán found himself relaxing too. The fear of having to go outside wasn’t just from Mark. 

He was not as afraid of the ocean as Mark was, but he knew that he wasn’t comfortable in it either. The ocean was a force and a life of its own, and even on earth he still had endless amounts of respect towards it. Now that they were on an alien planet, and more than that it’s ocean, he realized he was scared shitless too.

The monitor now showed a 25% and Seán thought that maybe it was getting slower. That or maybe he just needed something else to happen. 

Something else to put his attention on.

His eyes went to the fabricator on one of the walls. Instant machines, that created other new stuff based on pure materials. It was clearly an amazing artifact, just like the repair tool, but with an even bigger capacity. Seán mentally crossed his fingers and turned it on, displaying recipes to create various things that were definitely going to be useful.

“Anything helpful?” Mark asked from where he was sitting.

“Actually, yes. Food, water filter, tools, suits. This will be useful if we end up getting out”

Mark nodded slowly, clearly still not wanting to think that they needed to get out and inside the ocean to survive.

“Some of the ingredients are things like titanium, and aluminum. Other things require wiring kits and motors, but all of those can be made here too.”

Seán spent the rest of the night going through everything the machine had to offer. It didn’t help to make time go faster but at least it kept his thoughts in line.

Not buried as if he had preferred, but in line. At this point that was the least he could ask for.


	3. Alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter's up! 
> 
> I am having a lot of fun writing and editing this and I hope you enjoy this too :D

The night had passed on what Seán thought it could have been a few of space hours. Not a full night cycle but some hours definitely. The scan was about to be completed, they hadn’t stopped looking at the screen the moment it hit 80%, and now was 2% away from finishing.

The waiting was killing them. They still had endless amounts of adrenaline running through their veins which made them not being able to sleep the night away, but they were also putting their complete attention to the monitor, and even if it made time feel like it was going slower, they didn’t put their eyes away.

1% left from the scanning and they were sure they wanted to get some answers at whatever was happening around them. They were standing now, ready for whatever the scan was going tell them about their situation.

Seán’s mind went to how he hadn’t been able to grab any of his stuff from the Aurora, the ship they had been travelling in. A big crash had woke him up in the middle of his sleep and the sudden alarms going on and on around the whole ship made him put on some decent pants, a shirt that he had left thrown aside from the day before, and get out of his room as fast as possible.

He remembered how the crew had started to shout at them about going to the escape pods as fast as possible, and how he saw all of the other passengers start running through the hallways. He had bumped with Mark on his way to the capsules, he remembered that, but then his memories purposely just blocked everything else. He had let Mark take care of the situation and Seán had just followed him.

He was completely thankful to Mark for not leaving him behind. He was sure he would have not been able to survive alone.

“ _ Scan complete _ ” A computered female voice from the capsule said the moment the monitor showed the 100% on the screen “ _ Recording of names and positions of the crew unavailable. Life pod conditions: stable. Malfunctioning systems: Recording system, audio and video; Wireless connection; Motors; and Oxygen” _

“Well, that doesn’t sound very good, does it?” Mark said, mostly to himself rather than for Seán to answer.

“ _ Ecosystem scans: Planet 4546B, The Safe Shallows. Records say this planet’s 98.87% surface is covered in water. There are underwater developed flora and fauna. No signs of any big danger nearby. Some of the materials outside can be used as construction materials. Almost all of the planet’s resources can be used on the fabricator.  _

_ The ship Aurora is on the north of the lifepod, at 1134 meters away. Conditions: Unstable. No life was found inside it on the scan. The Aurora is expected to explode on 4 hours and 42 minutes causing a radioactive wave to hit the surface, this will not cause severe damage but it is recommended to not enter during the explosion nor after it. Exploration of the ship is not recommended unless wearing a radioactive suit. _ ”

Mark and him stood watching the monitor for a second, trying to digest everything that had just been thrown at them.

“No life inside” Seán felt his knees go weak he couldn’t avoid the question any longer “Were we the last ones out?”

“No” Mark was now pale, and Seán knew that they were thinking the same thing.

Seán sat again on the capsule’s floor. How many people had died on the explosion? How many of them had died on the crash?

How many people they had left to die because they had been panicking inside their lifepod?

“The other pods”

Mark turned to see Seán. He knew what Seán had meant and fear settled on his face again “No”

“What if they’re still alive?” If they had any chance to save people they didn’t have much time to lose.

“We are in no way, shape, or form, ready to go outside and just start looking for people, we don’t even know where they could be! the scanner showed nothing!”

“That doesn’t mean that we need to let people die!”

Seán’s comment visibly surprised Mark and he seemed to consider it for a second before he turned around at the monitor and started to click the buttons on the monitor again, seeming to look for something specific.

“Got it”

“Mark, we need to do something” Seán’s voice was quieted down by the pod talking again.

“ _ Contacting and Sending the coordinates to the nearest ship. The message was sent. Waiting for another ship or station to pick the signal. _ ”

“Come on! That’s all?!” Mark was screaming at the monitor and clenched his fists. He looked like he wanted to throw everything out of the capsule and start punching things, but he was good at containing it.

“What do you want to do now, huh? Stay here and keep screaming at the screen?” Seán asked, he was getting angry, he felt impotent, he couldn’t do anything to help anyone. He started question himself if anything of the time they spent inside the capsule had been worth anything at all.

“I don’t know!” Mark was angry too. He was touching things on the screen again, trying to find anything useful “This thing doesn’t even show how to get back!”

“Mark, other people left the Aurora before us” Seán tried again, panic growing inside of him “We need to find if someone else is alive”

Mark ignored him.

“Mark, what if they are in danger?” This time Mark hadn’t moved nor given any sign of regret and kept looking for something on the screen, open and closing folders over and over, trying to find any help.

Seán was getting pissed. He couldn’t be avoiding him now, could he?

“Are you just going to stay here and act as if other people couldn’t be fighting for their lives right now?!”

He ignored Seán’s comment again. However, Seán was not taking it. If Mark wanted to act like an asshole, then he could do it by himself.

“Fine” Was the last thing that Seán said before turning back and going for the stairs that led him to the entrance of the pod that was on their roof.

And just like that he was outside again. 

With the light of the morning Seán wanted to think that the ocean looked peaceful, but not knowing whatever was down there, even if the computer said that there was no big threat, it was still terrifying.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” Mark suddenly shouted when he noticed Seán getting out of the pod, clearly starting to follow him through the stairs. 

The sound of Mark following him caught him of guard but he was not backing down now. So he turned to face the ocean again and didn’t think it twice.

Seán jumped.

The first thought Seán had, when he was in the air, just before touching water, was how this was the exact reason why they had stopped talking. It had started with less collabs than usual, less podcasts and less unpredicted surprise streams. Of course they kept talking with each other, but what before were hour long skype calls, turned into one or two texts from each other once or twice a week. Sometimes even longer.

Because that was what they did, they pulled away from each other.

The second and third thoughts were milliseconds later, when he touched the water and  _ cold _ merged with  _ something is going to eat me _ .

Seáns eyes kept close after he hit the water, waiting for an attack that never came. Seán opened his eyes and he got to actually marvel the place where they had landed for the first time. The water was crystal clear, the rays of the sun crashing with the surface of the water and making everything around him shine.

There were fish. Not normal fish, but colorful and of weird shapes. One little bud, green with grey, with two big eyes at the sides of his face. Another one that had the exact silhouette of a frisbee. There was dozens of them that swam on banks and others that were transparent. A little bit further away there was some bigger fish that seemed to be having tails with big yellow spots.

It was definitely the first time he had seen anything alike and Seán felt as if a part of him had been completely stupid for fearing to jump in the first place. Not completely stupid, since he still didn’t know anything about the place he was in, but right there, right now? It was a magnificent view.

He had still not grabbed enough air, however, so he found himself going to the surface again faster than what he had wanted.

He came out grabbing a big load of air for his lungs and suddenly the water wasn’t as cold as it had been at the beginning. 

“Jesus Seán! You scared the fuck out of me!” Mark screamed at him, still on the top of the life pod.

He had jumped to escape Mark’s frantic attitude and to avoid being brushed off again, but Mark had still followed him outside. Seán had mixed feelings crossing his mind, he wanted to feel bad for acting like that towards Mark, wanted it or not, they were alone on this planet that none of them knew and leaving each other behind was just acting without thinking.

The other part wasn’t feeling mad, but more like annoyed. He was fine, he didn’t need a babysitter, and Mark didn’t have the right to demand him to just stay put while he went into an angry rampage hitting and screaming at the pod’s monitor.

“Rule #1: Don’t split up! You said that! Now come here and take my hand”

Mark reached for Seán, obviously trying to get him inside the capsule again, but he was not going to take it. The scan had told them that some of the materials on the water were useful for some things and he was going to figure out what those things were.

They needed to find out more about where they were. None of them had enough knowledge to make sure that someone was going to arrive and save them, so they had to be prepared for the worst. Seán also felt like he needed to go and help the other capsules that had been ejected from the pod. They couldn’t be the only ones that survived. He was denying that thought.

“No, you stay in there, I will look for things” He said decisively to Mark.

“What do you mean ‘look for things’? It could be dangerous” Mark was definitely freaking out now, the hand that wasn’t reached to grab him clenched to the pod as if his life depended on it.

“There’s nothing down here!” Seán realized that he was almost smiling. Mark had nothing to fear, and yet there he was, looking like a cat scared of a bath “You should actually come see this! It’s beautiful”

Seán tried to reach a hand and take Mark down with him, but Mark retreated it before Seán could touch him.

“You’re nuts” 

“I’m trying to help all of the other pods” Seán finally said, letting his hand fall on the water.

Hurt crossed Mark’s face and his eyes went back to the pod. “What if they’re dead?” 

Dread filled their silence once again and Seán forced the images of people drowning out of his head. He was not thinking about it. Not now. Not until he saw it with his own eyes.

“What if you are just going to put yourself in danger and all for nothing?”

“What if someone is screaming for help right now?” Seán was not having it. How could Mark had saved him from the Aurora but didn’t want to go and look for the others?

“We don’t even know where they are” Mark looked tired, neither of them wanted to fight, he knew that, but they had different points of view. They both wanted different things.

So Seán decided to let it be.

“We don’t need rule 1. I’ll go and find some stuff for the diving suit, I know where to find you”

He turned around to dive into the water again when Mark stopped him.

“WAIT! Wait!” His voice sounded broken, letting all of his terror finally come out “Don’t… Don’t leave me”

Something inside Seán moved. It had been buried for so long, but now those three words were waking it up again. He wanted to get pissed. Seán just wanted to scream. He wanted to go into a rampage and just swim as far as possible. He wanted to punch something, more specifically, he wanted to punch Mark. 

He had wanted to hear those words so much just a couple of years ago. He had been alone, he had been in a bad place. And now it was late.

But he couldn’t find it in himself to be mad. This was not about that. It was not about whatever had happened between them before. This was Mark scared shitless because Seán was going to go around the ocean, alone. Leaving him  _ also  _ alone.

“Just- let’s just plan this out okay?” Mark’s voice was stronger than before, probably more confident now that he had caught Seán’s attention “Every 40 seconds you come back to the surface, you go down there and every 40 seconds you come out and I make sure that no weird fish ate you”

Seán felt a tug on his chest again but this time he pushed it back. He had always been good at burying everything down.

“Okay?”

Seán looked at the ocean where he was floating around and down. The place was not deep, whatever there was that could help him get the diving suit, he  _ could _ get the stuff and come back up fast enough. He could also give whatever he was grabbing to Mark for him to hold on to them. At the end, help was help anyways.

“Sure” Seán shrugged “Just don’t count on me appearing every 40 seconds exactly. I’m not great at multitasking.”

Mark let out a sigh and a chuckle at the same time. Maybe their Rule #1 was not bad after all, at least they both had someone to rely on.

“Ready?” Seán asked and got a nod as a response.

And then he dived down again.

The ocean was still breathtaking (he chuckled to himself at his little joke), but he didn’t have time to stop and admire whatever was happening around him. He swam down and, hoping that none of the stuff that he was going to grab was poisonous, he cut some weed and pink mushrooms out of the ground and grabbed it with one of his hands. 

He had not been counting. It may have been a small joke to make the tension between Mark and him go away, but he was really not good at multitasking. Or at least not in this kind of situation. He had to put attention to everything around him, grab whatever seemed like it had a value for making stuff, and also be aware of how many seconds he was underwater.

Seán was so not going to count.

But he was staying out of air so the least he could do was going up and take some more.

“51 seconds” 

Not the best thing to hear when he was getting out of the water, least with the annoyed tone that Mark used, but he was just going to ignore it. There were more things to get and Mark was not going to stop him.

“Take this for me” Seán handed all of what he had gotten from the ocean’s floor to Mark, who, in return, made a weird face as if he didn’t want to grab it “I need my both hands if I’m looking for more stuff”

Mark sighed and shaked his head, appearing as if he was considering something.

“If any of this kills you while you are just touching alien plants, then it’s your fault and yours only”

Mark took what Seán was giving him and put it on the top of the pod.

Seán dived again.

The floor had hundreds of different especiments, and the fish that lived on there were cautious of Seán. They didn’t get near him, but they also didn’t just run for their lives when they saw him approaching. So he got so see some of those up close.

He felt bad about it, but he also grabbed some of the fish as proof to scan, but it was what he had to do.

For what appeared to be the next hour or so, Seán got together most of the different things that were inside the ocean. He learned that some of the rocks had some minerals inside them but you had to crack them open first. He grabbed some corals from the small cliffs that existed a couple of meters away from the pod. He got “attacked” by the bigger fish, which seemed to expel some kind of sphere farts that exploded after some time.

He grabbed whatever he could and gave Mark all of it. Mark on his side secured everything that Seán passed him and reprimanded him when he was either late to come out for air or had wandered further from the pod than Mark categorized as “safe”.

They weren’t safe. They were stranded on an alien planet. But Seán never said anything back, it was better to just let it slide.

“I think there is nothing more that seems different around here”

Seán had accustomed to the water temperature, and now that the sun was almost on top of them, the temperature was nice. He really wanted Mark to join him, the search would have been faster and maybe Mark could get to experience the same view as he.

“Okay then, get inside” Mark said while grabbing everything that he had gotten and started to put them inside the pod.

It was the first time that Seán had used the entrance below the pod, but he had found it easier than to climb the stairs and then drop from the top.

His body felt heavier as it usually felt after being on the water for a long time. Even if he didn’t know if gravity was much different from earth, Seán could have sworn that he was expecting himself to feel even heavier, but at the end it wasn’t like that. Just a normal weight above him.

“You must be really glad that the temperature is not cold. Otherwise you would be freezing right now” Mark started laying down things on the ground and separated them on a small order by similarity.

“I actually feel better out here. The water was really cold when I got in, so outside just feels warm” Seán leaned back, let his head recline on the walls of the pod, and closed his eyes. Everything was in many levels not okay, but swimming up and down for so much time and punching rocks underwater to get the minerals out of it, it had been a workout.

Exercise always helped him concentrate. It was the best activity for him to center himself and let everything flow away. Swimming seemed to do the trick, because worried or not, he felt calmer now. Or at least his heart was not pounding on his ears screaming at him to run away.

“Hey, come on” Mark called his attention after a couple of minutes, and when Seán turned to see him, Mark had finished categorizing stuff and was looking at everything intensely “gotta get all of this on the fabricator”

“Yeah” Seán had said as a whisper.

Why, of all people on earth, he had to get stranded with Mark himself?

It was not that he disliked him. It was not that he felt like he didn’t know him. It was not that Seán would have prefered to get stranded alone without knowledge of whatever was happening.

But Mark was… Mark. One of his favorite youtubers, before and after he got into youtube himself. One of the best friends that he had back on 2014 to 2016. A charismatic and intelligent person who, just as himself, had the ability to do whatever he put his mind on even if that burned him to exhaustion.

Mark who had stopped talking to him because the small bit that they had with their relationship had fucked things up.

Seán was stranded with Mark. But what else could he do.


	4. It Happened Once

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter's up!
> 
> I edit the chapters alone but my first language is not english so if there is any grammar error I am sorry! 
> 
> If any of you guys are interested in beta reading send me a dm on tumblr @zathwashere

Mark had been panicking since the moment that they both had arrived and with good reason.

The fucking ocean.

It was not just his horrible luck that their ship had suddenly exploded and forced them to take the life pods out to survive the, now on fire, Aurora. But he had had the luck to get stranded on the _fucking_ ocean.

It was taking all of his will to not start screaming at the top of his lungs for help. 

He had cried, he was not even going to deny it, he had full on wheeped because the ship had crashed, because there was no way to contact planet earth, because he didn’t know if anyone else was alive.

And because it had to be the ocean. Of all places to crash, he had crashed on the ocean. The most terrifying place of all of the ecosystems..

Seán had cried too, but who wouldn’t have cried? It was a traumatic experience for god's sake!

Then the whole waiting for the scan to complete happened, and even if they had been so goddamn lucky to find a repair tool and some nutritional bars and purified water. They had to still wait for everything on the monitor to go scan their surroundings. _THEN_ when they had finally gotten a result from the scan, the news that almost 99% of the planet was water had broken the walls that Mark had put up.

He went in a fency. Sure, he hadn’t broken the monitor, but he had been really close when he got to send the SOS message and the computer had thrown at him a _“Waiting for a ship to pick up”._ He was mad, really mad.

And he had brushed Seán off to the point where he just got out of the capsule and jumped into the ocean.

That had put all of his anger behind and fear replaced it. Seán was the only anchor that he had with whatever sanity that the accident had left him, and Mark had made him jump to the ocean to avoid being with him.

He tended to do that. Push people away from him, and he had pushed Jack to the edge and made him jump into god’s knew where.

So he had screamed for him. He had yelled his name, and right when he was about to jump and look for him, Seán came out of the water.

They only had 1 rule and it was to not split up. Seán had made it, and he had still been the first one to break it, not even half a day later.

Seán wanted to go and found other survivors but Mark didn’t. That was all what their discussion was about. Him being an egoistic asshole for the hundredth time in his life and not wanting to drain whatever luck they had left.

He had his reasons. What if something dangerous got near Seán or him? What if the people they were looking for were already dead and both of them were putting their lives on the line? What if someone came to look for them (someone that had experience with survival and oceans in space) and they didn’t find anything because they were out _trying_ to help people?

When he had pleaded Jack to not leave him alone, something weird crossed through his friend’s face that made Mark’s chest twist. For only half a second Seán had seemed hurt, but not in a kind of hurt that was just pity towards Mark, that was personal. The kind of pain that you only saw on someone’s eyes when they had expected something from you and you had disappointed. 

And Mark had wanted to ask. 

He wanted to know when they had both fucked up that badly that they wanted to push each other away with as much force as possible to not see each other again, and still not being able to let each other go. He needed to know when had they both chosen to let their relationship become a fishing trip, calm, lonely, boring, but still knowing that when the fish and the rod met it would be a constant fight of rolling and letting go.

Over and over and over again.

But he didn’t ask. It would break them both. So they stuck with their Rule #1 and with a small plan to follow.

Seán swam down, and everytime, even if they had too much weight on their shoulders, everytime Seán got out of the water telling him about little things that he had found amazing underwater. Telling him how the water, not polluted by anything, was like there was crystal clear, as if there was no water at all. How the fish swam carefree around him, and how the plants were vibrant colors underwater.

Everytime he came up he looked more tired, but also a lot more relaxed.

When they had gotten enough to test on the fabricator Mark started to get everything inside the pod through the upper entrance of it, and when everything was inside he started to order everything by type. Seán had entered from the hatch below and sat on the floor, leaned to the wall, water dripping from his hair to his face and to his neck. 

Seán was white. He remembered that Bob, Wade, and him used to like to mess around and say that milk didn’t have nothing against Seán’s white skin. The shining of the water and the light that entered through the roof of the capsule and reflected on Seán made him look like glowing. 

Mark knew that he really liked watching Seán. What he hadn’t expected was liking seeing Seán _wet_ that much.

He felt how blood traveled to his face and he looked down to stop thinking about that.

They hadn’t fucked their friendship up. Mark had done it.

Mark’s memories started to flood his head and he remembered the first time that he had been completely thrown away by Jack’s laugh. It hadn’t been anything from other world, and he had definitely heard him laugh before. But it had been on one of their first panels together on the Markiplier and Friends. Seán had laughed after some of their usual bickering, when Mark had acted as if he was offended by Jack getting on Wade’s side, and somehow it started something inside him.

He thought that liking someone’s laugh was normal. Because it was! He had asked friends and looked around on the internet about it. People said that it was perfectly normal to like someone’s laugh and that it didn’t mean that he had any type of romantic interest towards anyone.

At the end, Mark just deemed it as they recording to many videos together and him getting way to used to it. Besides, it wasn’t illegal like hearing Jack’s laugh, so he just made a promise to himself to make him laugh a little more. Even if it was just for his own benefit. He had always been a little too selfish.

Mark shaked his head and put full attention to all the things that he had on the floor. Keep remembering that would get him into a rabbit hole of memories, and he had pushed all of that aside for years now. So he was blocking it, just as he had done before.

“Hey, come on” He said once everything was on the ground ordered by type and size and completely ignoring Sean’s body just in front of him “gotta get all of this on the fabricator”

“Yeah” Seán sounded tired. He had the right to, they had been woken up in the middle of the night by their ship breaking down, they spent the night on this planet without any kind of sleep, and he had just spend more than an hour swimming like crazy and hunting for materials.

But Jack still stood up. He was stubborn, had ever been. Mark had been forced to learn that years ago.

The fabricator opened with a sensor the moment they both got near it and Mark would be lying if he said that it hadn’t surprised him. The day before Seán had been the one that checked the fabricator and messed around with it, he would have joined him if they had been on a different situation, but Mark had prefered to drown himself on pity than to actually try and comprehend whatever was happening.

Jack started to click stuff on the machine, looking confused on whatever he was clicking.

Mark turned to see the buttons Seán was clicking and noticed that some of them shined blue while others were gray.

“The buttons were those colors yesterday when you used this?”

“No” Seán kept clicking the buttons, opening and closing folders, leaving them in silence for a couple of minutes before speaking again “It somehow knows what materials we have. Yesterday all the buttons were gray, and the blue lists some things that… I guess we have?”

“Guess?” Mark asked looking at the things they had on the ground “How is it even reading this? Does it have a sensor on the pod?”

Seán shrugged and grabbed a small piece of crystal that was on the ground on the little pile of minerals “Let’s try it”

Jack put the crystal on the base of the fabricator and pressed a button labeled ‘glass’. The fabricator then aimed 2 lasers at the crystal and this started to deformate and create a small plank of glass.

“Hell yeah” Jack said, excitement crossing his whole body, looking as if his energy had just been completely recharged with his small creation.

Mark was also baffled. The little machine had just plain transformed the small crystal into glass with only 2 small lasers. It was unbelievable and he didn’t know how to feel with this kind of technology. How long had it been existing and why the fuck had they not presented this to the public? It would help hundreds of people and help jobs be easier.

“Now I just need to know what do we need for a diving suit” Jack said interrupting his thoughts and going back to face the fabricator.

Mark had wanted to say something. Seán had said ‘we’ as if he was considering that Mark was going to go with him on his little rescue mission. He was not. Mark still didn’t know how he was going to convince Jack that he was not going into the alien ocean, not matter what he said. They weren’t prepared.

He didn’t noticed that he started to take some steps back until he heard Seán sigh.

“I _am_ going, Mark”

And he knew that Seán was serious. That no matter whatever he chose to do with his time, Seán was going to try and find the other pods.

“I know” Mark said back. 

_Stubborn_.

Jack grabbed a couple of other materials from the ground and put it on the fabricator. This time Mark didn’t see what button had Jack clicked, but he saw how the machine got its lasers out again and started to make another tool. It looked like the repairing tool, but it was thicker, probably heavier.

When it finished Jack took it and showed it to Mark.

“A scanner. It should do my search for stuff a lot easier” Jack told him, little to none emotion left on his voice.

“How do you know it’s water proof?” Mark answered the same way. They couldn’t lash out and throw themselves at each other’s throats the moment they had a little disagreement. Mark found amusing how they both had decided to just block themselves from each other at the same time.

They had always used to share the same ideas.

“The thing just created this with raw materials with two blue lasers” Seán gave Mark a little smirk that made something inside Mark revolt. Seán was expressive, all of his emotions usually really easy to notice, completely extroverted. Only a smirk from him was just bizarre.

“You’re tired. You have been swimming for a long time, you haven’t even eaten anything yet” Mark was stalling for time, the longer it took for Seán to go into the ocean the longer he would have to think it over. 

Mark hated himself internally. He too wanted to help everyone else. He wanted to know if all of the other people that escaped through the pods were also alive and safe. But he couldn’t risk everything he had. Mark usually went with the greater good, but this was not definitive, they both could lose their lives. 

And all of that probably transferred to the way Mark asked Seán to stay. Seán looked down at the scanner on his hand and then back at Mark again, looking him right in the eyes, as if weightening his options.

“I think I saw an option on the fabricator to cook and/or cure the fish” Seán said pointing at the three small different fish that were lying on the ground “Unless you want the nutritional bars”

Mark couldn’t help but to sigh in relief “Let’s leave the nutritional bars for emergencies”

Jack nodded and moved to leave the scanner on one of the pod’s seats, to then walk for the fish.

Mark’s thoughts went directly to one of those survival games that they had played years ago, even before they had even dyed their hair. He remembered that he had never played the game, and how Jack sounded comfortable playing it. He remembered saying something along the lines of Jack going to grab wood and materials for their survival while Mark would fish and cook.

It hadn’t been Seán’s fault for the both of them to grow apart.

So Mark beat him to the fish and grabbed him first, surprising Seán with his fast movements.

Mark knew that it was a bad idea. Probably the worst that he had had in years, but they needed to grow past the awkwardness of the first day if they wanted to do anything remotely good.

“You’ll get stuff and materials from the oceans, and I’ll cook” Mark met eyes with Seán’s and even if Seán’s eyes showed confusion at first, they quickly turned into recognition “I’ll be the housewife”

Mark’s heart was pounding hard on his chest. And Seán only looked surprised.

Mark was sure now that he had fucked everything up again. He didn’t know how long hey stood quietly. Maybe minutes, maybe seconds. Time on that planet was weird and time was a construct after all.

He was just going to apologize when Seán started to laugh. Not an amusing huff, not a chuckle. A full on laugh.

Time started to run naturally again and Mark felt as he let out a breath that he didn’t know was containing. He knew that they could work through that, at least only through the recollection of materials, but it was something. Baby steps.

“God, wasn’t I the housewife?” Jack said, smiling and walking to a seat, apparently giving Mark full control over their food. “how many stupid things did we say on the internet?” 

Mark also smiled and went to the fabricator “Dunno? We used to scream ‘septiplier away’ _a lot_ ”

This time Seán only chuckled, but the air between them felt way lighter than before.

“We did things wrong” Jack said voice lower than usual.

Mark put the fish with the big eyes on the fabricator and this opened the options. The food button, being the only one turned on, called his attention and he opened it, to then click the button that read ‘cook peeper’. Was that the name of the fish?

“I mean, I know it wasn’t entirely our fault, but we could have said something before it went as far as it did” 

Mark was battling himself. He stopping talking to Seán hadn’t been because of their jokes, nor the fans, nor the pressure, or whatever that Seán was blaming. Mark had stopped talking to him for his own sanity. Things were going down a rabbit hole that he didn’t know was able to come back if it kept going. He had been the one pushing away.

“I should have tried a little harder”

And with that last comment, Mark turned to see Seán, who was now sitting with his legs crossed on the seat. He was not looking at Mark, he was looking at his hands, fidgeting with them, probably because of his own anxieties.

“It wasn’t your fault” Mark found himself saying.

He didn’t know that they were going to end up talking about it that early on their stranded journey (not that he thought they were going to talk about it _at all_ ), and still they were there.

Seán lifted his head and looked at Mark as if he wanted to contradict him, but Mark kept talking.

“Listen, during that time I-” The fabricator interrupted him with a buzz, telling him that the fish was ready.

Both of them turned to look at it and Mark took it as a way out, they could easily change the topic now. Granted, it was _not_ a good thing to leave things unsaid, but Mark didn’t care, maybe it would be better this way.

“I don’t have plates” Mark said grabbing the peeper with one hand and giving him to Seán, mindlessly putting the transparent fish on the fabricator “So you’ll have to just take it”

Seán raised an eyebrow and grabbed the fish.

Mark didn’t meet Seán's gaze, it was not going to be good for him. So he turned to the fabricator again and started to click the buttons.

“Mark, you were saying?”

Mark felt a knot form at his chest and he focused harder on the fabricator. 

Fuck it right? Maybe telling him was the best option that he had. Maybe that way he could finally move on with his life.

He just wasn’t going to tell him directly and was going to be inspecting the fabricator and the options that gave him, like food and water.

“Listen, Seán, I-”

 _Water?_

“Wait what?” This time Mark not talking was honestly by him being astonished., what did it mean that he could make _water_ out of a fish? “I can make water out of this fish?” 

Seán stood up quickly and joined him in front of the fabricator. Mark signaled the button to him and and clicked it, for it to then show two options of making water.

“We can make water with _bleach_ and with _fish_?” Seán sounded half shocked and half amused and Mark agreed with both those emotions.

“We are literally surrounded by water, what the fuck?” Mark laughed at the irony and Seán joined him.

He pushed the button of water and the two lasers somehow gave him a final result of _a full bottle of water._ Both of them laughed again.

“How in the hell this thing made this?!” Mark grabbed the bottle of water. The _sealed-with-a-cap_ bottle of water.

“Drink it” Jack had said it with a tone of dare on his voice and Mark felt as if he had to comply.

Mark opened the bottle and, not completely sure this was the best idea, he took the bottle to his lips.

“It’s fucking water”

They both laughed again and Mark tasted it again just to be really sure.

He passed it to Seán and he grabbed it before taken a sip from the bottle. The other’s reaction of surprise to confusion to surprise again made Mark start laughing again.

Finally, when he turned to see Seán again he was smiling at him and Mark felt the weird tug inside him again. He knew what that tug meant, he wasn’t stupid, he just wasn’t going to admit it. Mark was not making that mistake again.

“Whatever it is that you are having difficulty saying?” 

Mark was sure that he had gone pale, did Seán knew?

“You don’t have to say it” Seán put a hand on his shoulder and Mark froze, what was happening? “I don’t know what it is, but is okay. You can talk to me when you’re ready”

Seán’s smile was genuine and Mark felt like he was back on 2015 over again.

“I’ll cook the other fish” Was the only thing that came out of Mark’s mouth. 

Seán’s smile didn’t flatter and sat on the seat again, taking the fish that he had left aside.

 _Baby steps_. Mark found himself thinking. For what? He didn’t have any idea.


	5. Into the Unknown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update! This chapter was, for some reason that I don't know, really difficult to write and I hope that you like how it turned up :D

They ate. Not in silence but they didn’t say much either. Small talk mostly. Who would’ve thought that small talk, when you’re lost in another planet, in the middle of its ocean, would be as difficult as it were? Definitely not Mark.

Mark found himself thinking how stupid the fish was. Nothing personal against seafood, but this fish that was literally called  _ boomerang _ tasted like nothing! It was just fish but with nothing on it. 

He missed salt.

He was also really weirded out. Not only because the fish, apparently after being cooked on the fabricator got rid of all of it’s bones, but because the pod seemed to have too many archives of the biome that they were in. It knew the name of the fish, the place they got stranded in, and even what type of materials they could use on the fabricator and what materials they couldn’t. Seán and him weren’t the first people to be on this planet at all.

And the problem was that none of them had ever heard anything about this planet. Not on the news, not from the people who gave them the training, not from the crew of the Aurora. No one had mentioned anything from a planet that was inside their solar system (because no way in hell they weren’t) that was mostly water and was  _ inhabited.  _ It just sounded completely wrong.

“Ready?” Seán stood in front of him ready to jump back again into the ocean.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be, to be honest” Mark was not one to hide from the truth after all, and it was not like Seán would change his mind.

Jack was not going far. They had both investigated about which materials they needed to make some oxygen tanks and diving suits before they decided what was their next step. 

“Well, better than anything” 

“Remember, we keep the same pace that we had before, you go down, take what you need, and try not to spend more than 40 seconds underwater” Mark cared, he was not going to let Jack drown, and that was just a given.

“Yes, I know”

“Also try to not go really far from the pod, we don’t know what is out there”

“Oh my god, Mark, I’ll be fine” Seán was looking directly at him and slightly smiling.

Mark wanted to return the smile, it was just something inside of him saying that he should. He just wasn’t able to do it with so much happening around him. He was still worried.

“Just… be safe” Mark was scared of being alone, and most than anything, he was scared of losing whatever sanity he had left and Seán was part of that sanity.

“Will do” Seán nodded to Mark before turning to face the ocean. 

Mark had to take a deep breath and tell himself that they had gone through the steps of their plan several times. They had also checked with the monitor past scan where was the easiest and closest way to find the materials that they needed for the diving suits and the oxygen tanks. They were prepared.

“I saw the Kelp forest that the monitor talked about” Seán speaked again, seeming more nervous than the last time that he had jumped “It’s further away that what I have swam before”

Mark knew. Or at least he had had an idea when the monitor told them that the only way to get some  _ fiber mesh  _ was through some creepvine samples, which they would only get on the creepvines from the Kelp Forest. That specific knowledge and naming bugged Mark’s suspicions towards the people who send them to space even more, but it was not something to worry right before Seán was about to go into another hunt for raw materials.

“You may not be able to see me”

“I know” Mark answered, anxiety starting to grow inside him. Again.

He didn’t want to go into the ocean, it was his nightmare come true, but he also didn’t feel okay with leaving Seán go alone.

“You can always come with me” Seán sounded helpless. Not even hopeful nor expecting Mark to change his mind. Just helpless, as if he knew that talking about that topic with Mark was a lost cause.

Jack turned to see him directly at his eyes, waiting for a change of his mind at the last second. Mark hated himself because he knew that he was categorizing him as selfish. As if he didn’t want to go into the ocean because he was scared of whatever could happen to him, but Seán was wrong, Mark was scared for both of them.

Alone inside the ocean.

That was his real nightmare.

“Rule number 1 is to not split up, right?” Mark found himself saying.

Which didn’t only caught  _ Seán _ out of guard, but caught Mark too.

“Wait what? You’re coming with me?”

Mark couldn’t be scared for much more time. Even if it was only to make sure that neither of them died for any stupid reasons, he was not leaving Seán alone.

“Let me just....  _ mentally prepare _ for it” Mark said while putting his head between his hands, he was not panicking more than he was reprimanding himself for whatever was eating Mark from the inside “You should get the stuff for the oxygen tanks, the titanium and the glass. You give it to me and then… then I’ll go with you for the creepvines”

Saying that Seán was surprised was an understatement. His mouth was a little open and his eyes blinking faster than normal.

“Are you really sure?” It had been more of a whisper than an actual question but Mark had made his decision.

“You said it, maybe there’s someone out there. I can’t chicken out now” Mark felt a little more confidence grow inside of him. People needed them, he just was to afraid of seeing that before “Besides, I’m changing my mind, I don’t want to be the housewife”

Seán’s face started to form a small smile, and this time Mark smiled back, even if it wasn’t a big smile, it was comforting. They had been friends, they knew how to work together.

And most of all, he trusted Seán. Sure, they could die, but at least they could try and save each other.

“I’ll go look for the titanium and the glass, I’ll be back in a sec”

“Done” Mark gave him a thumbs up and he saw how Seán took air and jumped into the water.

He started to count for himself.

1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi...

Two types of anxiety started building up in his chest and he tried to point out the feelings even if he already knew what they meant. One, the smallest one was for Seán, even if they had done that before, even if Mark already knew (and was braced for) that Seán was not going to count and just look for the things that he needed, he was scared. 

15 Mississippi, 16 Mississippi, 17 Mississippi…

The other anxiety was the one that was clouding his thoughts. He had agreed to go into the ocean to look for the materials for the diving suit. To go even deeper to look for the lifepods.

He had made the decision to actually face his worst fear and he was doing it in just a couple of minutes. 

It was not that he had had a traumatizing experience with the ocean, Mark thought to himself, it was more something along the lines of fear to the unknown. Things lived in that unknown, things that with a single mistake could easily hurt them both, even the water could kill them if they were not careful enough!

The ocean was really some scary biome.

28 Mississippi, 29 Mississippi, 30 Mississippi…

Mark looked at the water and, for what seemed like the hundredth time in the past couple of days, thought about his possibilities, there weren’t much. It was either die on the pod or die under the water actively trying to escape. One of those was surely the best option and, even if he knew which one, he hated it.

Seán came out of the water, almost 40 seconds exactly and he smiled at Mark, the action comforting him while he stood and reached for what Seán was handing him.

Mark sighed and put the things inside the pod, he just couldn’t find it in himself to leave Seán alone.

* * *

They had both made themselves a tank oxygen to be able to spend a bit more time underwater and where now standing on the top of the pod. Mark grabbed tensely at one of the bars from the metal stairs.

It was time. They hadn’t talked much when making the tanks, mostly because Mark needed to let the silence make him understand what he was doing. Séan actually understood and let him muse about it on his own, sending him supportive looks every time their eyes met.

“Are you completely sure you want to do this?”

Mark looked at the water and let go from the bars “Yeah… yes, I am sure” Seán’s look seemed to still be worried about him, so he smiled teasingly “If  _ you _ can do it, then I’m sure that I’ll make do just fine”

“Wanna do it together?” Seán said, some of his worry fading away.

Mark took a deep breath and tried to gather all the confidence that he had hoarded in his life “On three?”

Seán nodded and he too faced the ocean. Mark wasn’t sure when the numbers had been counted, only that he was suddenly jumping toward the water.

Mark was frozen in place and he seemed to enter a state of shock. He never had had that kind of feeling flooding him as fast as it was doing it but he had it on his chest. His eyes were closed under the water and he could barely find it in himself to move an inch. He thought that maybe that was it, the shock was going to freeze him completely and he was going to die drowned in an alien planet.

It didn’t happen. Out of nowhere, a hand took his own and pulled him upwards, his body seemed to respond to the touch because he found himself swimming to the surface. When he finally got made it his lungs screamed for some fresh air.

“Jesus, Mark, you okay?”

Mark finally opened his eyes to find Seán looking at him worried

“You just froze, that was dangerous man”

Mark looked around him slowly. He was shivering and his fight or flight response was running through every single one of his veins, but he fought it and tried to center himself. 

The water was cold around him and Mark wondered if he was shivering because of the cold or the fear. He moved his legs and arms testing his surroundings and started to distance himself from Seán who was still grabbing his arm.

Seán let him go slowly, almost scared that Mark would drown.

“I’m fine… I’m fine… I just-” Every single thought that Mark could have had in his life was running through his head at a thousand miles per hour, fog making him fell into a panic state, once more. Mark shaked his head and took a deep breath, he just needed to keep one single line of thought and follow it.

Seán didn’t touch him and just stood at his side, posture tense, as if ready for anything that could endanger Mark.

The sudden line of thought of Seán looking way more charming than what he should look had been the one that pushed him out of the turmoil that was his head and forced him to calm down. Mostly because it was  _ not _ the time to think aout that.

“I’m fine” He said, taking his eyes off of Seán. Mark was in no position to be having those thoughts.

“You sure?”

“You can stop asking that, yes I’m fine” Mark had not wanted to let his voice out with that much edge, but he also needed Seán to not get too domestic with him, he had enough problems with being stranded to be dragging his own emotional problems to the mix, it was most definitely a recipe for them to hate each other.

Mark, however, couldn’t stop a pang on his chest when Seán’s eyes hardened and backed away from him.

“Just trying to help” Seán let out as a whisper, probably more for himself than to Mark.

Mark stood still and saw below him. The water crystal clear, the flora living on the floor moved with vibrant colors, the fish swimming in banks, carefree of everything around them. Seán had been right when he had said that the biome was breathtaking, everything was unbelievable where they stood.

“Let’s go for the vines” Mark let his tone go out nicer this time, but he noticed that Seán wasn’t going to let that go easily.

“Sure” Seán turned, floating besides Mark “I saw them this way”

Mark took a deep breath and started swimming alongside Seán. 

They were going to the right of where their pod was floating, swimming with their heads over the water because even if they had their brand new oxygen tanks, Mark could tell that they both felt a bit more at ease without being completely submerged underwater. Neither said anything during the time they were both swimming but they didn’t swim to far before Mark saw something coming out of the water.

“What is that?” He froze on his place and stared at the moving shadows.

Mark could swear that he heard Seán laughing lowly besides him but he was scared, he was not going to pay attention to that if suddenly a tentacle monster got out of the water and threaten to kill them both.

“Pretty sure those are the creepvines, Mark”

Mark turned to see Seán incredulous, they were  _ not _ the creepvines, those were, black, and moved weirdly… and looking at it closely those were actually leaves. Seán must have noticed that Mark relaxed in his place and laughed, harder this time. 

“That was  _ not _ funny!” Mark felt his face flush and instinctively he threw water to his face, making Seán laugh harder.

“You’re right, you’re right, it wasn’t funny” Seán’s laugh stopped for a moment before his smile spreading even more “It was hilarious”

Seán started to laugh once again and Mark couldn’t help but to start splashing water at him. He wanted a fight, he would give him a fight. The splashing caught Seán of guard, he started to block the water to hit his face with his hands and his laughter started to die down, but not completely.

“Okay! okay! truce”

“Yeah, you better call truce” Mark squinted at Seán and he noticed that he was actually smiling “Shall we get those things?”

Seán turned to look at the creepvines again and then back to Mark “As long as you don’t get scared by some creepy plants, sure”

“Oh, shut up” Mark said shaking his head and diving under the water for the first time since their little journey.

The water was still way clearer than most oceans on earth, there was still some fish swimming around them, and the vines were a couple meters in front of them. But the water was also darker, the vines covering some of the light that entered that part of the ocean, there were also some type of fish that they hadn’t seen before, or at least Mark hadn’t seen it before, it was big, almost their size, and while it was far away from them, Mark could see that they didn’t look friendly.

Mark and Seán reached the vines and started pulling some samples from it, trying to get as much as possible for their diving suits. The new types of fish got Mark a bit too nervous, it made him feel powerless, knowing that if those things were going to start heading towards them at any point they weren’t going to be able to swim away in time.

They both were pulling things from the vines, Mark trying to concentrate enough into not letting his hands slip and tear the leaves of the vines, when they heard a very deep sound. It had sounded like a wail and Mark’s mind, giving him the fastest correlation that it could, just gave him  _ a whale _ . Mark didn’t know if there actually  _ was _ whales in space but, as far as he knew, whatever had made that sound could be as deadly as a killer whale.

When he finally realized what was happening, Seán and him were already swimming towards the surface, they had swam deeper than what Mark had noticed and was comfortable with, at least a dozen meters down the water.

“What the fuck was that?!” Mark said the moment they were both outside the water, trying to look below them for whatever thing had made that sound but the darker ocean making it hard for him to see.

“I don’t fucking know!” Seán also sounded panicked, and how could he not be? A thing, that sounded like it had the size of one of the most dangerous animals on earth, just wailed underwater where they had been just a moment ago and the creepvines didn’t let them see anything.

“I can’t see anything” Mark was frantic trying to find anywhere the thing that had made the sound “We need to go, now”

Seán shaked his head, a look of fear still lying on his face but somehow he stood still.

“Why not?!” 

“I don’t know if we have enough vine samples” Seán was barely moving, he looked like he was also trying to see if there was anything underwater but Mark doubted that Seán could see something.

“We will make do, we need to go” Mark reached and grab Seán, trying to pull him in the direction of their pod, damn be the diving suits, he wasn’t going to let any of them be eaten by some space version of a whale.

“We can’t! We need the suits” Seán didn’t pulled his arm out of Mark’s grab, but he pulled them both on the vine’s direction.

“We are going to die if we stay here!”

“I’ll go” Seán said in a clamer voice, not letting go of Mark but also not letting himself be pulled “It will be fast, I won’t take much time, but we need the diving suits, we cannot be bare in the water for much time, and you almost-engineer should know that.”

Mark wanted to say a lot of things. That he wasn’t planning on let them enter the water for much time after this, that they could make at least one suit with the samples that they had already, that he didn’t want to see Seán being eaten by some weird alien. But he didn’t, because sometimes he could only listen to what Seán said.

“I’ll get a couple of more samples from the nearest creepvines” Seán broke their eye contact and turned back to see below them, Mark still expecting something to creep on them from the shadows “You can keep an eye out? Then we’ll get the hell out of here”

Mark nodded slowly, as much as he wanted to stay away from that part of the ocean, he also wasn’t going to let Seán die. So he made guard, while Seán fought against the vines to try and get as much sample as possible.

Mark was ready to get out of there when Seán pulled his shirt and pointed to something at the floor of the kelp forest, it looked like a piece of something. Mark turned to see Seán and then back at the thing. He clearly couldn’t be thinking about going down there? least of all with the wailing thing going around freely.

Just as that thought finished crossing his mind, Seán started to dive deeper into the forest, trying to reach for the broken piece that was at the bottom. Mark tried to grab him again, but this time it was too late and Seán was out of his reach, he was going to end up putting a leash on him, maybe that way he could stop going to what was most probably eternal doom.

Burying whatever fear he still had inside him, Mark dived down behind Seán, trying to still keep an eye out for whatever thing that could be a threat to them both. While they got closer to the thing, Mark could see how Seán took out what he remembered was the scanner and put it near the broken piece (something that looked like some kind of motor).

Seán finished scanning and looked at his scanner expecting it to say something to Seán but saying nothing instead. He turned back to look at Mark and shrugged when their eyes met. Mark shaked his head and pointed up, trying to make it clear that they needed to be out of the water soon before they stayed without air in their tanks. Seán nodded and they made their way out when the wailing started again, and this time it sounded nearer. 

Mark looked around frantically and noticed how the wailing was repeated a second and third time. He looked everywhere around them but could only see them when Seán stopped him and pointed to some point beyond the forest. Around five immense whale-like creatures where swimming slowly, not moving towards them but perpendicular to where they were swimming.

This time Mark realized that he had not been the only one that had frozen on his place, Seán was at his side, eyes open wide, looking at whatever those things were.

The shock didn’t last them much, the sudden realization that those were actual giant aliens and the lack of oxygen made them resurface way faster than what they were expecting.

“Oh my god” Seán said, rubbing his face and breathing faster than normal, as if he had just ran a marathon.

“What the fuck?” Mark said, not really in response of Seán’s commentary but trying to add his own commentary.

“Those things were…”

“Horrible? Deadly? Scary?” Mark tried to finish for him “I have a lot of more adjectives for those”

“Cool” Seán’s voice was calm again and made Mark shiver. 

“Cool? Cool? Really? Those things could very easily snap us in half! They are wild animals!”

“But they didn’t!”

“I hate you so much right now”

Seán seemed to understand that Mark was fighting against himself to not succumb to his own fear and shaked his head slightly “Sorry, I kinda have a thing for big monsters and it didn’t sink that they could…” He left his sentence to the air and silence settled for a moment before he spoke again “Let’s go back to the pod”

“Yes, please” Mark found himself begging and turning to swim towards the pod. It had been to much adventure for just one day.

They were arriving to the pod, some kind of tension still in the air from encountering those big aliens, when Seán pointed to their pod. Mark prepared himself to see anything, some squid-like creature contracting their pod, a hole on it, a shark-like alien waiting for them, but he saw nothing.

“What?” Mark turned towards Seán, a quizzical look on his face.

“It has a face” Seán said happily, pointing directly at their pod.

“What?” Mark repeated, not understanding at what point they had changed their conversation to that.

“Those two circles! They looked like eyes!” Seán smiled at him and Mark couldn’t help but to sigh in amusement in response.

“Not because it has two circles on it, it means that it’s a face” He couldn’t help but to laugh a little, feeling a bit safer since they were back to the shallow.

“I’m calling him Henry” Seán added, acting as if he hadn’t heard anything that Mark had said.

“You gotta be kidding me?” 

“Look him in the eyes and tell me he doesn’t look like a Henry” 

Mark shaked his head in amusement for the tenth time that day and felt thankful for Seán and his nice distractions.

“Yeah, sure buddy”

Seán laughed a little with him and they entered to the pod. 

Seán setted the samples that he had grabbed on the ground and, taking some quartz that they had on their pod for some PDA, he stood in front of the fabricator and started making the diving suits. Mark started shivering and he rubbed his arms, trying to get some heat back. Mark didn’t feel okay, he was pretty much not okay and the thought of him shivering just after what they had experienced made him realize that maybe he was going into shock. 

He didn’t feel okay, that was a given, but shock would not be good for neither of them at the moment. Mark turned to look at Seán who was almost unbothered making the second suit. They were in shock, there wasn’t a way in which Seán wasn’t going into shock, and yet somehow, he was there, standing in front of the fabricator and making stuff for both of them to use.

“How are you not panicking?” Mark couldn’t stop himself from asking, taking Seán of guard and making him turn to look at him.

Seán looked worried. He was looking directly into Mark’s eyes and Mark could see that maybe the way that Seán panicked was different. However there was another emotion on Seán’s face, Mark thought that if he hadn’t drifted away a couple of years ago, maybe he would be able to understand what Seán was thinking.

“Wouldn’t help” Seán answered.

He took one of the PDAs that the fabricator blurted out and handed it to Mark. Mark stared at the PDA, almost expecting it to answer all of his own doubts.

“Wouldn’t help what?” Mark found himself asking again.

Seán took a seat besides Mark and sighed before turning to him and smiling. “You”

Mark knew that their mood swings weren’t normal. He knew that they were lost in an alien planet and their chances of survival were very low. He knew that there was a bigger mystery within the knowledge that this planet had and that he and Seán were going to be in big trouble if they ever got to arrive back home.

But he also knew that at least, for now, he was not going to be alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can also find me on tumblr at @dontsailalone


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